"Retailers, who claimed Microsoft remained 'fuzzy' on the Zune’s wireless capability, said only that Zune will allow users to bookmark songs that may be shared via Wi-Fi, but that users cannot purchase songs on the go from the Microsoft Zune Web site," the Twice report states.

Microsoft further told the retailers that the company will offer just a single unit this fall, equipped with a 30GB hard drive, a bigger screen than Apple’s video iPod models and available in three colors at a suggested retail price of $299 (same as the video iPod).

My Take: As Microsoft gets ready to take up the fight against Apple on music devices, more details are gradually slipping out about the high-profile Zune project. At first, it seemed like Microsoft had it all right this time around - it was going to launch a sexy product that was superior in functionality to the iPod. Perhaps the biggest competitive advantage was that it was rumored to have full WiFi capability that would let consumers download music and beam songs to other users on the go, adding a social aspect to the personal music player.

Now we are told that this might not be the case. Perhaps it was just too good to be true and it would not surprise me if the Microsoft people will come out and say that future Zune players will have this capability, but not this first generation players.

A big deal? Yes, because Zune’s appeal diminishes rather drastically. Perhaps the crippled WiFi is one of the reasons that the Zune may retail for cheaper than previously predicted. Early reports had it selling for $399, but now it seems that the price more likely will be $299, the same price as the 30GB iPod Video.

So, is $100 off the price enough to compensate for a missing WiFi capacity? I don’t think so. All of a sudden, it seems that Microsoft will just offer and also-ran at the same price with pretty much the same capacity as the video iPod. This is also what the majority of DMW readers predicted in a recent poll of ours.

Sure, Zune may offer a somewhat bigger screen and the capacity to beam songs from one user to another. But these functions are not very advanced (they are already available in the MusicGremlin device) and likely to appear in the next generation iPods.

What it comes down to is the fact that Apple has established an exciting brand much like Harley Davidson and created an entire universe for the customer, not simply a cold, unemotional device like most electronics companies make these days. Like many bloggers point out, the dizzying and confusing arena of hardware, content services, formats, marketing messages and other things from all other companies in this space is a nightmare for the average consumer. So far, Apple with $0.99 downloads and its iTunes and iPod integrated brands have made it easy for consumers to go digital. Microsoft is miles behind in this race and it won’t be easy to catch up.

Related Links:

http://www.twice.com/article/CA6361350.html

http://www.bloggingstocks.com/2006/08/10/can-creative-ever-make-good-on-its-promise-to-take-apples-marke